Seat head restraints have been used for many years in automotive vehicles. These head restraints generally extend vertically from the seat back. They are provided for neck and head protection during rear impacts and thus may prevent neck injuries.
While providing valuable protection to the seat occupant should an impact event arise the front passenger seat head restraint may also obstruct side visibility to the driver of the vehicle and front visibility to a rear seat occupant. Ideally the front passenger would raise the head restraint before occupying the seat and would lower the head restraint when leaving the seat.
However, when the front passenger seat is actively used by a vehicle occupant, it is often impractical to put into place a disciplined regimen of raising and lowering the head restraint as required based on seat occupancy. The risk of the head restraint being left in its lowered position when the front passenger seat is occupied would likely result in the head restraint being left up at all times. The outcome of this approach is that the front passenger head restraint would more than likely cause an obstruction of side visibility to the driver of the vehicle and front visibility to a rear seat occupant at all times.
Accordingly, what is desired is a system that provides automatic movement of a front passenger head restraint between its upright position when a front seat passenger is present and its lowered position when no front seat passenger is present and when the rear seat is occupied.